Hillyard Yacht Club
Old stories...
“Don’t let’s go to the dogs tonight"
By Darin Z. Krogh
I did some dog sitting for some friends while they left town for
the holidays. My feet stink but I still wouldn’t own a dog.
When I was a young boy living in my mother’s house, she used
to ask me the same question, over and over, day after day, “Is it
you that stinks?” Mom’s remark was framed as a question but was
actually a declaration. And it was usually aimed at my feet.
Sometimes I had only been out of the shower for a couple of hours. However, I was cursed with feet that are quick to stink and a mouth quick to remind my mother that the human foot has 250,000 sweat glands. Feet are among the most perspiring parts of the human body.
“Go and wash your feet again, then put on some clean socks.” Mom had no interest in the physiology of the problem and less interest in forgiving a lad of a genetic trait that she, herself (aided by my father) had passed on to me, their innocent son.
Back to dog sitting.
Since I do have sweaty feet, I am driven to remove my shoes and socks when I return home after a prolonged absence. My feet are hot and sweaty.
I immediately wash my feet if my wife is home or guests are expected. But I don’t wash my feet for dogs.
When I removed my socks while in the company of our friend’s dogs, the dogs would put their nose into the stocking and sniff a while, then pick up a sock in their mouth and retreat to some quiet spot to enjoy the scent.
These dogs don’t rip the socks up, they seem to take special care. Usually they put the sock in the corner of their mouth and gave it an occasional gentle chew like my grandfather did with his tobacco plug. These dogs were reluctant to give up the stinky socks so I usually had to use a “doggy treat” to divert their attention, then I could swipe the soggy sock and put it in the wash machine. That trick worked with cotton stockings.
However, those of you who have the stinky-feet-syndrome know that nylon, acrylic, rayon and other man-made fabrics make for a foot smell unmatched by socks made of natural fibers like cotton.
These artificial fibers make for The Dream Scent Of All Dogdom, a much more powerful stench.
Even doggy treats won’t coax a dog to give up a stinky nylon fabric sock. My friends’ dogs would insist on carrying the nylon socks in their mouth when I let them out to do their business in the backyard dog bathroom. They always returned with the socks still in-mouth. I had to wait until the dogs fell asleep before I could make a stealthy come-from-behind sock snatch and dispose of the prize in the wash machine
These characteristics make it hard for me to recommend a dog as a pet. Sadly, there is an urban legend that accuses dogs of sometimes putting their noses in things worse than socks.
My Wife Thinks You’re Dead
By Darin Z. Krogh
As all married men know or once knew, old girlfriends are trouble. Even if your wife has grown tired of your sad act through the years, she can usually get her steam going when confronted with the thought of that little hat-check girl you used to date before you were married.
A weirdly bent country singer named Junior Brown probably sang the ultimate old-girlfriends-are-trouble song with the title “You’re Wanted By The Police And My Wife Thinks You’re Dead.” Check it out on YOUTUBE.
In the song, Junior Brown’s old girlfriend has come back to spoil things. Apparently there were rumors that the girlfriend was deceased which suited Junior. However, she has popped up alive in the small town where Junior and his ever-lovin’ bride reside. The song is a plea for the old girlfriend to go far away. It’s also a declaration of Junior’s no-hanky-panky love for his present wife.
But that isn’t good enough for any wife. There is no way for a husband to come out looking good, after all, he made the decision to date the little tramp years ago. That deplorable act cannot be forgiven, not for a long time.
Which brings up the fundamental question about old girlfriends: How much time must pass after a guy has dated a pre-marriage girlfriend until he can be forgiven? Is there is an applicable “statute of limitations” after which a wife cannot get sizzled about any mention of that old used-to-be?
The other night my wife and I were at the new Geno's Restaurant on Hamiton Street with a few other couples.
While in the bathroom, I spotted an outdated poster of some woman singer (standing alone while holding a microphone) who had sang at Geno's grand opening. The poster was small and artsy, a retro kind of look. I took a fancy to it and asked the waitress if the restaurant had any more of those posters. She told me to take the one off the wall in the men's room. I did, then showed it to everyone at our table after which I rolled up the poster and took it home.
When my babycakes and I got home, I unrolled the poster to admire it. Big mistake. My spouse went into a lecture about how I craved that poster because it reminded me of "Rita". And how that poster looked just like the poster of Rita that I had hung on my apartment wall when we first courted (which poster I was ordered to take down shortly thereafter).
Of course there was no resemblance, the lady on Geno’s poster was blond and singing into a microphone on stage. Rita (on her poster) was singing into the drink gun and standing behind the bar where she did her singing. My repudiation of the comparison only lent fuel to my dear wife’s contention that I was still in love with Rita, a woman who had suffered an accidental death several years ago and who was my girlfriend for a week one time in history before I had met my wife.
The whole situation reminded me of a friend, Carlos R., and his jealous wife, a woman whom he met while in the Army and brought home from Germany as his bride. Carlos told of that pretty little Deutsch spitfire baiting him when the Miss USA pageant was on T.V.
“Which one do you like, Carlos?"
He would refuse to answer because he knew her jealousy of his old girlfriends was flammable. After she kept pushing and badgering, Carlos would say anything. He blurted out "Miss Arkansas". His wife blew up, "I KNEW YOU WOULD SAY THAT! MISS ARKANSAS HAS BIG BREASTS JUST LIKE YOUR OLD GIRLFRIEND!" The non-winnable fight was on.
Carlos complained to me that he suffered drastically reduced "conjugal amenities" for carelessly remarking “Miss Arkansas“. I suffered some of the same for collecting a poster which did not resemble a long dead woman who was my cheating girlfriend for a week some 20 years ago.
But Carlos and I are lucky, we have never suffered the ultimate horror, specifically, an old girlfriend popping back up in the neighborhood, like Junior Brown sings of in his song:
I don’t know where you’re headed for
But I know where you been.
We’re reminisced now let’s just go our separate ways again.
Go find another ex-sweetheart to hang around instead
Because you’re wanted by the police
And my wife thinks you’re dead.
As I made it clear above, a dead girlfriend doesn’t get a husband off the hook. Wives remember girlfriends that husbands have long forgotten.
There isn’t space here to take up the topic of encounters with ex-wives. Ex-wives are more complicated than ex-girlfriends. That would require a book. And a longer, more angry song by Junior Brown.
Don "Goose" Giese - Spokane Police Dept.
By Darin Z. Krogh
A friend of mine, a good cop, retired from the Spokane Police Department a couple years back. Don Giese was a major crimes detective for most of his years in service with the blue in Spokane. Over the last decades, the breaking stories on many of the local 5 O’clock newscasts showed Don coming out of a crime scene escorting a gurney with a body strapped on it, time after time (a different body each time, of course).
I asked Don why he was always in the company of a deceased person when I saw him on T.V.
Don answered, “As far as murder scenes, there is only one lead detective and the others are there to assist in any way that they can. That's why you saw me at many crime scenes although I may have not been the lead on some.”
I am too kind to deflate Don by telling him that I already knew about the “one lead detective” stuff. I had learned it from watching 48 HOURS and other cop reality shows. And he returned the favor by not deflating me when I showed him my Captain’s Badge from the School Safety Patrol during my days at Whitman School on the north side of Spokane. He just said “Nice” and nodded at the badge. Law men who respect each other act that way. I didn’t tell Don that Carol Gregerson was my co-captain at Whitman School. I always guessed that Principal Walter Denman didn’t think I could handle the job on my own. But a girl?
One weekend several years ago, I was in Seattle and picked up a newspaper and took a look, there was Don Giese, getting some ink in the Seattle P.I. I guess any PR is good for movie stars and major crimes detectives looking for information, phone number included:
“Two fishermen found the torso of a woman, age 25-40, near the T.J. Meenach Bridge on the Spokane River on June 20, 1984. The woman, who may have borne children, was dismembered while alive. She was
believed to blond hair and was about 5-foot and relatively thin. She had moles on her neck and imperfect
teeth. Her skull was found April 19, 1998, in a vacant lot used for dumping fill materials. Contact Spokane
Detective Don Giese, 509-625-4219.”
I became friends with Don Giese through my cousin Ken Krogh who is also a retired major crimes detective for
Spokane. Ken was more in the mold of the “Bad Cop”. Of course, it was hard for me to muster a lot of respect
for a younger snot-nosed cousin who snitched me off to his aunt, my mother, at least twice a day (we lived next
door to each other while growing up). I hope that some of the beatings that I applied to young Ken helped him
to become skilled at dodging the inevitable swings that came his way from punk criminals. He owes me a lot.
Don Giese says that it’s hard to pick which case was his most interesting, “They all are interesting on their own
merits. Probably one of the cases that comes to mind is the murder of Rebecca Headman, a 13 year old
prostitute who was murdered at the Ranch Motel in the early 90's by John Medlock. He ran off to Canada and
we had a hell of a time getting him back for trial. His mom hired Seattle defense attorney John Muenster who defended Willie Mac in Seattle's Wah Mee massacre. Medlock was found guilty and is now residing in the State Pen in Walla Walla. That makes it interesting. Working a crime in two countries gets tricky.”
So if you are ever driving down Hamilton Street in the afternoon, stop in at Jack and Dan’s and ask if “Goose” is in the place. Have a beer with Don Giese. Chat him up. He’s a nice man who did a great long service for the city of Spokane. My cousin Ken Krogh might be in the place too. He’s not so nice, the bad cop. I may be partially responsible for Ken never really respecting the badge. When we were kids, I pinned on my School Safety Patrolman’s badge before I administered the beatings that he had coming to him.
Doggy Treats
Testimony By Darin Z. Krogh
Most of us want to help our parents. They get old, somehow. Then they become our Elderly Parents. They accumulate problems. They keep their prescription pills in plastic trays larger than a fishing tackle box. One of your parents may die, leaving the other a bit lost in this world. Only a lifelong companion can give them what they really need but you step in to help when they start to go astray.
Let me tell you of such a moment.
My father sits at his desk sorting through his bills and correspondence. I sit next to him and act like I am interested. He has a treat dish sitting on the desk. Some treats for him and some treats for the focus of his life, Zoe, his little yapping dog.
He is showing me his financial situation. He blabs on and on, pointing at the critical parts of important documents. He reaches for the treat dish and pulls out a butterscotch candy, unwraps it and puts it in his mouth. His little dog stands up at his knee and so Dad pulls a dog bone candy from the treat dish, unwraps it and feeds the dog treat to Zoe. He does all this while continuing the narration regarding his correspondence. I have pretty much lost what little attention I could give him. I try to ask a meaningful question here and there.
He resumes talking. After some time, he reaches back to the treat dish and unwraps another dog bone pooch treat. While he is talking, Dad puts the dog treat in his mouth and chews away. He doesn’t stop and spit it out. He continues to talk while chewing and swallowing the doggy treat. I am horrified inside my head but maintain a cool outer appearance. After some minutes, he reaches for the treat dish again but I put my hand over the top of the dish in order to block his hand. “You are not going to eat another doggy treat,” I declare.
He seems shocked. I am thankful for that reaction.
MEMORIAL VACUUM BAG
By Darin Z.Krogh
I called my sister-in-law the other day. She is recovering from breast cancer surgery
and in an attempt to cheer her spirit, I brought up the subject of death. I reminded her
that she and her husband, my brother several years ago had decided that whoever
outlived the other had the duty of sprinkling the cremated spouse’s ashes on the rug and
then vacuuming them up.
I worked hard to convince my wife that she and I should adopt the same policy, that
when either of us should pass away, the other spreads the cremation ashes on the carpet
and vacuums them up.
My wife works at a taxing job. I am the house husband who does most of the house
cleaning while my wife is away bread winning. As you might guess, my wife does not do
the vacuuming at our house. That task falls unto me, the house husband. It is fair. Most
of our neighbors are elderly females and old school so they give high praise when they see
me performing tasks that were reserved for wives when they were younger women. Their
praise makes me feel better about stirring the brush in the blue cleaner coloring the bowl
of the toilet that I am sanitizing.
My wife is unfamiliar with the operation of our home vacuum cleaner since she has no
experience with the device. So I gave her a quick familiarization of our vacuum cleaner
explaining how easily cremated ashes would come up cleanly from the carpet. She agreed
to the post-departed arrangement of my brother and his wife.
I am several years older than my wife and through the years have indulged in habits
that place me in the category of suffering an “earlier rather than later” death. I do expect
to enter my eternal rest years before my spouse.
Some of you may suspect that I have made this pact with my wife to gain some short
sighted satisfaction that she would have to finally do a little vacuuming. But that is not so.
My wife earns a good income. My early retirement pension is not so good. And I need
a sugar daddy (mommy?) to bankroll my latest money making idea stated below.
When I heard of my brother and his wife’s ash vacuuming agreement, suddenly a light
bulb illuminated, the idea for this incredible product: Memorial Vacuum Bags.
In order to save her urn money, I suggested that my wife take the bag out after getting
all the ashes off the carpet, zip it up, then write “Darin” on the outside with a marking pen
and hang it in our closet. It would save a lot of money. Urns are expensive as are holes
in the cemetery grounds in which to bury the urns. If my wife felt a ceremony was required,
she could have close friends and family over for the vacuuming.
My money making idea is to sell couples all across America on the ash vacuuming
ceremony. Lots of wives would be attracted to the arrangement just to think that their
hubby would have to run the vacuum FOR ONCE IN HIS LIFE, even if only for a few
moments.
The plain foil lined memorial vacuum bags will go for $10 each (plus shipping) at my
web site. The faux gold foil bags will run in the $25 range. Wives, buy two if you think
you might somehow grow bored with widow-hood and make the mistake of marrying again.
